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Once upon a time, there were just books. It didn’t matter what they were about. The public read them, hungry for the next novel or the next serialized chapter in their favorite magazine. But then, marketing was born, and with it, categorizing. Now there are genres. There’s literary, which encapsulates all that can’t be categorized, but more often than not stands for “literature” that speaks to a universal audience. There’s science fiction, where science fact meets the “what if” of fiction. There’s the mystery genre with all its sub-genres, from cozy small town mysteries where there is no sex, graphic violence, or harsh language, to the roughest noir, to sub-sub genres like medieval mysteries, romantic mysteries, paranormal mysteries…and on and on. The romance category of books is everything under the sun, so many we don’t have time to go into them all here.But why bring up genre anyway? Well, because it helps us readers to find just the right book. Feeling like a mystery? We know what kind we like and can plug in the very category we find most intriguing on our search engines. I have to admit, it is handy, even though authors hate being categorized.I’m usually penning medieval mysteries myself, but I’ve made the venture into the paranormal. Not that there weren’t already fuzzy paranormal things happening in my Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Mysteries, what with the religious relics my protagonist always gets involved with. But this time there is no ambiguity. My new series, BOOKE OF THE HIDDEN, which comes out on Halloween, is a contemporary urban fantasy about a woman who leaves California to open an herb and tea shop in a small town in Maine. But when she finds an ancient book bricked up in the wall of her shop and opens it, she literally lets all hell break loose, and its now her job—with the help of a ragtag group of local Wiccans and the mysterious and handsome Erasmus Dark, an man who claims to be a demon—to put it all right again. It’s a tale full of magic, murder, and romance.So what do you need to pen a paranormal?1)A likeable protagonist. Likely a she and written in first person. Is this a hard and fast rule? No, but it’s the bulk of urban fantasies and paranormal romances. And if that’s what the people want, why make it tough on yourself. Oh, and by the way, is urban fantasy and paranormal romance interchangeable? Sort of. There can be romance in an urban fantasy, just not the main focus. And if the focus is romance, make sure one of the romantic leads is paranormal. When I was working out the series, I hired a freelance editor to help me straighten out the kinks. I guess she wasn’t as versed in paranormal as I thought she was, because one of her (lousy) pieces of advice was to not let my female protagonist have a relationship with the demon. Say what?2) Go heavy on the paranormal. Don’t be coy. Readers are tuning in because they want all that paranormal/supernatural stuff going on. Whether vampires or shifters, big bad demons or something else popping up from the netherworld, ratchet it up! Don’t let the supernatural be peripheral. Make it the reason the story exists. So maybe it might be fun for you to write the everyday life of a shifter, going to the PTA, baking cookies for the bake sale. But there needs to be a darker reason there’s a shifter in the book other than your love of extra hairy, howling guys. Falling down the rabbit hole and ending up in a different world far darker than Wonderland is a great jumping off point. Or as in the case of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books, Sookie has a special power that she hates having. But when all these vampires come out of the closet, it’s kind of a relief to her. Making the paranormal normal is the key.3) How about some romance? Do you know why the Beauty and the Beast story gets a resurgence every few years with women flocking to these stories? It’s because we like a tragic hero, and we also don’t mind a guy with a beast face, as long as his heart is soulful. Go for it. Run with it. Only this time he’s a vampire, or a werewolf, or a…whatever. A Wendigo with a heart of gold. Even Wendigos need love. Look, it really doesn’t matter what the beast is. He can start out as the enemy and grow and become a friend, then a lover. Remember Spike in the Buffy series? Man, did that ever work! That’s the bad boy making good. But still a bit of a bad boy. Don’t change the nature of your beast, because that’s what we like about him, but give him a reason to be a hero. He can have a change of heart, but maybe every now and then, he’s still gotta kill. Inner turmoil makes for interesting characters.4) Don’t forget the side characters. Every Buffy needs her Scooby Gang. And they aren’t just there for window dressing. One of the things I liked best about mystery authors like Julia Spencer-Fleming, is her knack for writing interesting side characters, the many people who populate her small town. Yes, sometimes they are just background, but in later books, they become the focus of the story. We were already introduced so we feel we know them, care about them when they get into trouble as the series goes on. Your side characters might start out as comedy relief or for exposition purposes, but don’t leave them there. Flesh them out. If they stick with your protagonist when the going gets tough, they will inevitably get into trouble on their own. And speaking of the good guys, maybe there’s an anti-group in the books as well. In the Twilight books, there were good vamps and very bad vamps. Pit them against each other and make it harder for the protagonist to do her job, whatever that job is.5) Setting. I love the fall. Maybe it’s because I live in southern California and it’s hot most of the year in the particular inland corner where I live, and I dream of cool, blustery days, and the colorful play of fall leaves rustling in the breeze. So not only do I set my book in a fictional small town of Moody Bog in the wilds of Maine, a picturesque and sleepy village where nothing could possibly go wrong, but I’ve set the action in the fall, just as the season turns. Just as everything dies. The books are leading up to the climax that will happen on Halloween, so my autumn is long and just as cold as I want it to be. But an urban fantasy or paranormal romance can be set anywhere. Kat Richardson set her Greywalker series in a decidedly dark Seattle. Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Vampire Hunter, makes her way through a fairy and vampire infested St. Louis. It doesn’t matter where you set your stories, as long you give it your own stamp. And by the way, this is part of your world-building, so make sure you know the rules of the world you’ve built—do your vampires sparkle in the sun, or go up in flames?—and keep it all consistent from book to book. This will require lots of notes. I know it does for me. And I never quite get a handle on the characters and the story arc until I’ve at least written the second book, so I recommend jumping on that as soon as you’re done with the first. Things will change. The rules of your universe will be more fleshed out. Don’t forget to go back to the first book and correct and smooth out those changes. It will definitely make for a great series that way.----

Award-winning author Jeri Westerson likes to make the fur fly in her new paranormal series, BOOKE OF THE HIDDEN, the first of which will be released on Halloween! See her “booke” trailer, her Pinterest page, friend her on Facebook, or read an excerpt on her website BOOKeoftheHIDDEN.com.https://youtu.be/3LPfNQAIasc

I love short stories. There’s something satisfying about a tale that can be read in a single sitting and make its impact all at once. For a writer, a short story offers the challenge to create a work that’s succinct yet fully formed – as well as the advantage that, though not necessarily easier to write than a novel, it certainly takes a lot less time.In addition to writing stories of my own, I’ve had the privilege of reading many short story manuscripts as an editor, a writing coach, a contest judge and a teacher of fiction writing classes. I’ve even written a book on how to write them. I’ve had the opportunity to look at short stories frontward and backward, upside down and sideways, and I have a few tips to offer that might help you in writing yours.Sharpen the focus. A short story doesn’t give you much room to stretch into subplots, characters’ backstories, or philosophical discourses. It works best when you concentrate on one incident, one set of circumstances, one series of actions and consequences. While a novel can cast a floodlight on a subject, a short story illuminates more like a flashlight’s beam.If your narrative wants to sprawl, don’t try to stuff it into a too-tight literary form. I recall one student whose story was bursting at the seams, filled with characters, plot twists, and locales that cried out for more development. The author was surprised when I suggested that what he’d really written was the outline for a novel. Taking the notion to heart, he turned what had been an overwrought short story into a fine novel.Have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I hear you saying, “Well, duh,” but what this means isn’t as obvious as it seems. I’ve read plenty of narratives that claim to be short stories but in fact are not. They’re character sketches or personal essays or portrayals of a slice-of-life moment. They open and close and have words in between, but they don’t have the forward thrust that’s expected of a story.One definition of story that I like is “the telling of a series of connected events.” A series of events implies movement through time. In a short story, the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story each have a specific function in orchestrating that movement.In the beginning, something happens that throws the main character’s life off center, even if just a tiny bit, and requires the character to take some sort of action.The middle describes what the character does to deal with this new circumstance.The end reveals the result—the character has restored balance, or embraced the new situation, or perhaps has failed to do either if it’s that kind of story. But whatever the outcome, something for the main character has changed. The change might be as large as new life circumstances or as small as a new understanding or insight, but as a result of what has happened, nothing will ever be quite the same.Make every word count. This is good advice for novels, too, but it’s especially important for short stories. There’s no room for flabby sentences, excessive explanations, or unnecessary details. Don’t worry about this while you’re writing the first draft, but be ruthless in the editing.An example is my most recently published short story, “Femme Fatale.” When I saw the call for submissions for Black Coffee, an anthology of noir crime tales, I knew this tale was a perfect fit for the theme. The problem: the editor wanted no more than 6,000 words, and my story had 7,000. I sat down with a printout and a pencil and begin whittling. Was this adjective necessary? Could I lose this witty line of dialogue? Could readers visualize the scene without this line of description? It took several passes through the manuscript, but when I was done my narrative was cleaner, tighter, and more powerful—and much shorter. When the anthology was published, I was honored to have it include “Femme Fatale.”# # #Margaret Lucke’s new mystery novel is Snow Angel, featuring artist/PI Jess Randolph, who joins the frantic search when, on the eve of a high-profile murder trial, the star witness’s seven-year-old daughter disappears. She is also the author of the novels A Relative Stranger and House of Whispers, and two nonfiction books on writing, Writing Mysteries and Schaum’s Quick Guide to Writing Great Short Stories. Her most recent short story is “Femme Fatale,” which appears in the noir crime anthology Black Coffee. Visit her at http://www.MargaretLucke.com.